True Love Never Dies
by CrazyApplesandOranges
Summary: "The first time he saw her, he knew; she was the woman he was going to marry some day." The story of how Sakumo Hatake fell in love and how devastated he was when he lost her.


A/N: So I was thinking in Orlando that we never really learn about Kakashi's mom, or really anything about his parents. I decided to come up with this story to explain who his mother really is, and why we never see her.

Warning: This does not have a happy ending.

The first time he saw her, he knew; she was the woman he was going to marry some day.

But, we're a little ahead of ourselves, aren't we? Let's start at the beginning, shall we?

Sakumo Hatake wandered around the village absently, wondering what he should do on his day off. He passed several people he knew, and waved at them, saying hello to a few of them.

His stomach growled, reminding him that he needed to find some place to eat soon. He stopped in front of Ichiraku's, contemplating going in and eating a bowl or two, when she walked over and sat down.

That made his decision for him, and he plopped down on a stool two away from her, and just stared.

She had beautiful golden-brown hair that shimmered when she moved her head, and breath-taking green eyes. She was tall, and a ninja, if the headband tied around her thigh was anything to go by.

Sakumo couldn't tell what rank she was, but he knew one thing: she was the most beautiful person he had ever seen before.

She realized he was staring at her, and turned to smile at him. He froze, not believing that anyone could look like a goddess when smiling.

"Hello," she said, moving over to sit next to him.

"H-hi," Sakumo said breathlessly. She smiled again.

"My name is Kina. Kina Yazuma. What's yours?"

"S-Sakumo Hatake."

"Really? I've heard that name before." Kina said thoughtfully, tapping her chin lightly with her index finger. Sakumo swallowed.

"Oh! I've got it. You're the White Fang." Kina said suddenly. Sakumo nodded, digging into the ramen he didn't remember ordering.

Kina smiled, breaking apart her chopsticks. "I just became a Jonin," she explained. "So I decided to treat myself to some ramen."

He nodded in understanding.

Hours later, Sakumo knew nearly everything about Kina, and they had a date set for the next afternoon. They would have talked longer, had Kina not looked behind her when the sun was setting and freaked out.

"I'm sorry," she had said, hastily shoving things into her bag. "But my father is waiting for me at home,"

He had been fine with it, setting the date and going on his way with a smile on his face. He didn't care that people were staring at him, having rarely ever seen the White Fang of Konoha smile, and continued on his way to the apartment he shared with Minato (1).

"Hey, Momo (2)!" Minato greeted him from the kitchen, where he was making a bowl of ramen for himself. "What did you do today?"

"How many times have I told you to stop calling me that?" Sakumo asked, slipping his vest and sandals off. Just because it was his day off did not mean he couldn't be prepared for an attack on Konoha. "And if you must know, I met a very nice woman and had some ramen with her."

"Oooh!" Minato appeared in front of Sakumo, who was sitting in front of the TV. "Tell me everything."

Sakumo sighed, a tired smile tugging at his lips. Sometimes Minato could be worse than a gossiping girl.

"What if I don't want to tell you?"

Minato put his hands on his hips, scowling at his best friend. He greatly resembled a girl looking like that. "You will tell me what happened, because I am your best friend and I need to know these things."

Sakumo closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and let it out back out it one soft sigh. "I really need new friends."

Minato smirked. "Old man, your life would be so boring without me in it."

Sakumo ignored the old man comment. "Whatever." He muttered, and then Minato squeezed every single thought, feeling and action from him about Kina.

"She's the one." He said when Sakumo was done. "She is the one you are going to marry some day. Hold onto her, Momo."

A year later, Sakumo knew the words Minato had spoken that day were one hundred percent true.

Sakumo was walking down the street when Minato ran up to him, frantically waving his arms in the air, nearly hitting some poor woman in the face. She scowled at him, ushering her children away.

"Momo!" he shouted. "You have to get to the hospital, like right now!"

Sakumo frowned. "Why?"

"Kina! She got injured on her mission. They just brought her in."

But Sakumo was already gone, sprinting along the rooftops as fast as he could.

He skidded to a stop in front of the hospital, and the nurse in charge wordlessly pointed him to Kina's room.

"Thanks," he said to her. She smiled softly in response.

He opened the door quietly, just in case she was asleep, but he needn't have worried. Kina was sitting up in bed, reading the magazine. She was scowling, at the magazine, or the fact that she was in the hospital, Sakumo wasn't sure. She immediately brightened when she saw him, though.

"Tell them to let me go," she demanded. Sakumo let out a sigh of relief.

"God, I was so worried." He said, collapsing in the chair next to Kina's bed.

"I'm fine. I just got knocked unconscious. There's nothing wrong with me!" Kina said.

"What happened?" Sakumo asked, taking Kina's hand and holding it tightly.

"Well, you know how my mission was just to get that man home, right?" Kina started. Sakumo nodded. "Apparently, he was a wanted man, or something. We were attacked halfway to our destination, and I got hit in the head. I didn't even get to fight!"

Kina pouted. "I was dragged back here to the hospital, and even though they can't find anything wrong with me, they won't let me leave."

"Well, at least one good thing came out of this." Sakumo said.

"What? I'm stuck in a hospital for God's sake!"

Sakumo chuckled. Kina really did hate hospitals.

"I know for sure that I love you. Kina Yazuma, will you marry me?" Sakumo asked, vaguely wondering where he had left the ring. Was it in his dresser? Or was it the closet?

Kina stared at him for a moment, and he started to fidget, before launching herself at him, both of them tumbling out of the chair onto the floor.

"Yes, yes, yes, a million times yes!" she exclaimed, hugging him tightly.

Minato burst into the room then, and he promptly shouted, "I knew it!" before sprinting back out of the room. No doubt to tell the world of their engagement. Sakumo rolled his eyes while Kina giggled.

"I can't believe he wants to be Hokage." Sakumo muttered. Kina giggled again.

They were married six months later, where Minato proudly announced that he had known al along that they would be married.

The day their son was born was the happiest day of Sakumo's life. Kakashi Hatake was beautiful, healthy baby, and Sakumo wouldn't have it any other way.

Kina wanted to leave the hospital the second she was rested, and Sakumo would have gladly followed her with Kakashi. But the nurses were demanding that his wife and son stay overnight. Sakumo could have gone home, but he felt that it would it be unfair to Kina, so he stayed.

He made himself comfortable in the hard hospital chair next to Kina's bed and gazed at his wife's peaceful face. Then he sighed and glanced out the window at the setting sun.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" someone said behind him—well, at least that was what he thought. There was nothing behind him except for a wolf with dark golden fur and green eyes—wait a minute. Why the hell was there a wolf in the hospital?

He scrambled backwards, not sure what else to do. "Wolf. Why is there a wolf?" he wondered aloud.

And then it clicked. The reason why her clan was so secretive, and why before they had gotten married he had never seen her after dark.

"Kina?"

The wolf bowed her head, hopping down from the bed to stretch. She sadly licked his hand.

_I'm sorry I've kept it from you for so long, _she said, but it sounded like she was saying it in his head, not out loud. This was only confirmed when she never opened her mouth.

"Why?" Sakumo asked, righting the hospital chair and sitting back down.

_Well_, Kina started, lifting a paw to scratch at an ear. _A long time ago, the Yazuma clan was given a gift by the goddess Amaterasu (3). When she separated from her brother, she had a slight fear that he would attack her. She created the Yazuma clan to protect her, and later, they joined the Leaf Village. They always turned into a wolf at night, but we have learned to suppress it when we need to. Over the years, we've also mastered the ability to change whenever we need to, mostly when we fight. _

Kina sat down, tilting her head to the side. _Although, even though we can suppress it, at great times of pain, or weakness, when we can't hold it back, we change. We're stuck like that until we're strong enough to change back. Some of my family members call it a curse, whereas others call it a blessing. I'm in the middle; it's both for me. We can heal faster, and we have senses that rival the Inuzuka's clan._

She stopped there, looking miserably out the window. _Sakumo_, she whispered. _I can understand if you want to take Kakashi and leave me, but—_

"Kina," Sakumo interrupted, sliding out of his chair to crouch in front his wife. "I will never leave you. I love you, so much. Besides, if I raised Kakashi by myself, it would be a disaster."

Kina had to chuckle at that.

Later, when Kina was human again, she whispered, "Thank you," into a sleeping Sakumo's ear.

When Kakashi was two years old, Kina got called out on a mission. Sakumo wasn't that worried, because Kina was capable of taking care of herself. So he was calmly playing with his son when Minato burst into the house, his arms waving in the air just like that day when Sakumo proposed.

"Sakumo," with just his name Sakumo should have been worried. Minato never called him anything but 'Momo' or Old Man—God, he was only two years older than the blonde, and just because he had gray hair did not mean he was old, damn it!

"Sakumo, Kina's in the hospital. She got injured really badly on her mission, and Mom (4) doesn't know if she'll make it." Minato said, shoving Sakumo's shoes at him. Sakumo didn't bother; he was already sprinting out the door to the hospital.

"Come on, 'Kashi," Minato said, helping the toddler pull his coat on. "Let's go see if Mommy's okay."

He picked the child up and hurried after his best friend.

When Sakumo arrived at the hospital, he immediately tried to go to Kina's room. A medic ninja held him back, saying that he couldn't go in yet.

Minato appeared next to him, Kushina Uzumaki—Kina's best friend and the love of Minato's life—behind the blonde. Minato's many attempts to date the redhead were useless—but at least she didn't hate him anymore.

"She's my wife!" Sakumo shouted, struggling to get past the medic ninja holding him back. "Let me go!"

Tsunade, who was visiting the village for unknown reasons, reasons which probably had something to with Minato, walked over. "I'm so sorry, Sakumo." She said, her voice choked, shaking her head. "I don't think she's going to make it. I've tried everything I can think of. All we can do is wait for a miracle."

"No." Sakumo murmured, sinking to his knees. "No, no, no, no! She can't die!"

He started sobbing, and Minato fell to his knees next to him after passing Kakashi to his mother. Tsunade held the toddler sadly while she watched the great Sakumo Hatake fall apart in front of her.

"Can we see her?" Kushina asked, tears dripping down her face, anxious to see her best friend before the unthinkable happened.

Tsunade led the way to Kina's room, biting her lip to hold back tears. She gave Kakashi back to Minato and left them so that they would have some privacy.

There was a sheet pulled up her chin, so they couldn't see how bad Kina's injuries were, but Kina was still alive, her wolf side keeping her alive that much.

"Kina," Sakumo breathed, falling to his knees again by her bedside. "_No_."

He choked on a sob and buried his head in the white sheets, shoulders shaking. A bloody hand ran through his gray hair, streaking it with red.

"Sakumo," Kina whispered, her voice hoarse. She coughed, and blood splattered on the perfect white sheets. Minato covered Kakashi's eyes. "Sakumo, you have to raise Kakashi. Be twice the parent to Kakashi to take my place. Get married, so that Kakashi has a mother."

The white ANBU mask, shaped like a wolf, clattered to the floor as Kina lost her grip on it. "Kushina, admit you love Minato. Minato, become Hokage, and both of you raise my son like good godparents. And Kakashi,"

Their son knocked his godfather's hand off his eyes to stare at his mother. "Make Mommy proud. I love—" Kina coughed again, but more harshly this time. She was gasping for breath now, and the hand in Sakumo's hair fell limply to hang off the bed. "I love . . . you . . . all. . ."

Kina took in one more shuddering breath, and then closed her eyes, and if Sakumo hadn't known better, he would have thought she was sleeping.

A heart-wrenching sob left Sakumo's throat as he stared at his wife's still body. Kushina buried her face in Minato's chest, and Kakashi screamed as realization hit him. The toddler huddled closer to his godfather's body as he cried. He always had been too smart for his own good.

Twenty-four years later, Kakashi stared at all the names he knew on the memorial stone, biting his lip under his mask. Kina Yazuma-Hatake, Sakumo Hatake, Obito Uchiha, Minato Namikaze, and finally, Kushina Uzumaki-Namikaze. All his family, dead. He had no one left in the world now, except for his godfather's son.

The Yazuma clan was slaughtered, much like the Uchiha clan, when Kakashi was four years old. Sakumo committed suicide when he was six. Minato and Kushina died in the war, and Obito sacrificed himself.

His mother's last words rang thorough his head. Nearly twenty-five years later, and he remembered them just like it had been yesterday. _"Make Mommy proud."_

"I hope you're proud, Mom, Dad. I hope you're having fun up there with Minato-sensei and Kushina-san." Kakashi whispered. He rested his hand on the rough surface of the stone for a while longer, and then shifted into a large gray wolf. He howled at the moon heartbrokenly, before running off into the forest to go back home.

A/N: Gosh, this took a while. Anyways, I hope you like it. I had to put a lot of effort into this.

(1): I imagine Minato and Sakumo being great friends before Sakumo dies, so I made them roommates.

(2): Minato is just too lazy to call Sakumo by his full name, so he says Momo instead.

(3): Amaterasu is the goddess of the sun in Japanese mythology. She and her brother, Tsukuyomi, ruled the skies. When Tsukuyomi killed the goddess of food because of the disgusting display of how she made the food, Amaterasu left her brother, angry with him, and this is why the day and night are never together.

(4): This is a reference to my other story, Miracles Do Happen. Tsunade basically adopts Minato, so she's his mother.


End file.
